Capital Facts for Three Cities in South Africa

Pretoria’s flagAlthough it may be South Africa’s largest city and serve as the seat for South Africa’s supreme constitutional court, Johannesburg is not the country’s capital.

Instead, a triad of South African cities share capital city roles: Pretoria (administrative and executive), Cape Town (legislative) and Bloemfontein (judicial).

South Africa was among the world’s 40 top exporters in 2017, shipping US$89.5 billion worth of goods around the globe. Highest-value South African exports are platinum, automobiles, coal, iron, processed petroleum, gold, diamonds, chromium, manganese, citrus fruit and wine according to the International Trade Centre.

Pretoria has a population of 3 million residents spread out over 475 square miles (1,230 square kilometers). While Cape Town is home to 3.9 million people, South Africa’s legislative capital occupies a smaller area of 315 square miles (816 square kilometers) compared to Pretoria.

Bloemfontein scores much lower in terms of its demographics, with 747,431 residents living within a vast metropolitan area of 6,284 square miles (2,426 square kilometers).

At the country level, South Africa’s land territory covers 468,909 square miles (1,214,470 square kilometers). The national population count was 54.3 million inhabitants as of July 2016.

Population density is highest in Cape Town’s metropolitan area with an average 12,300 Capetonians per square mile (4,700 per square kilometer).

Compare those metrics with South Africa’s administrative and executive capital Pretoria, where there are 6,400 Pretorians per square mile (2,500 per square kilometer).

South Africa’s judicial capital Bloemfontein’s population density is just 310 Bloemers (pronounced bloomers) per square mile (120 per square kilometer).

For South Africa overall, national population density drops to an average 116 residents per square mile (45 per square kilometer).

South Africans celebrate Freedom Day as a public holiday each April 27.